"By breaking into the shop of Herman Lauffer."
"House-breaking? Robbery?"
"Yes."
Vaux smiled incredulously:
"Granted that you get into Lauffer's shop without being arrested, what then?"
"I shall have this cipher with me. There are not likely to be many books in the shop of a gilder and maker of picture frames. I shall, by referring to this letter, search what books I find there for a single coherent sentence. When I discover such a sentence I shall know that I have the right book."
The young man smoked reflectively and gazed into the burning coals.
"So you propose to break into his shop to-night and steal the book?"
"There seems to be nothing else to do, Mr. Vaux."
"Of course," he remarked sarcastically, "we could turn this matter over to the proper authorities"
"I WON'T! PLEASE don't!"
"Why not?"
"Because I have concluded that it IS part of our work. And I've begun already. I went to see Lauffer. I took a photograph to be framed."
"What does he look like?"
"A minkan otterone of those sharp-muzzled little animals!Two tiny eyes, rather close together, a long nose that wrinkles when he talks, as though he were sniffing at you; a ragged, black moustache, like the furry muzzle-bristles of some wild thingthat is a sketch of Herman Lauffer."
"A pretty man," commented Vaux, much amused.
"He's little and fat of abdomen, but he looks powerful."
"Prettier and prettier!"
They both laughed. A pleasant steam arose from the tall glass at his elbow.
"Well," she said, "I have to change my gown"
"Good Lord! Are we going now?" he remonstrated.
"Yes. I don't believe there will be a soul on the streets."
"But I don't wish to go at all," he explained. "I'm very happy here, discussing things."
"I know it. But you wouldn't let me go all alone, would you, Mr. Vaux?"
"I don't want you to go anywhere."
"But I'm GOING!"
"Here's where I perish," groaned Vaux, rising as the girl passed him with her pretty, humorous smile, moving lithely, swiftly as some graceful wild thing passing confidently through its own domain.
Vaux gazed meditatively upon the coals, glass in one hand, cigarette in the other. Patriotism is a tough career.
"This is worse than inhuman," he thought. "If I go out on such an errand to-night I sure am doing my bitter bit. Probably some policeman will shoot meunless I freeze to death. This is a vastly unpleasant affair. Vastly!"
He was still caressing the fire with his regard when Miss Erith came back.
She wore a fur coat buttoned to the throat, a fur toque, fur gloves. As he rose she naively displayed a jimmy and two flashlights.
"I see," he said, "very nice, very handy! But we don't need these to convict us."
She laughed and handed him the instruments; and he pocketed them and followed her downstairs.
Her car was waiting, engine running; she spoke to the Kadiak chauffeur, got in, and Vaux followed.
"You know," he said, pulling the mink robe over her and himself, "you're behaving very badly to your superior officer."
"I'm so excited, so interested! I hope I'm not lacking in deference to my honoured Chief of Division. Am I, Mr. Vaux?"
"You certainly hustle me around some! This is a crazy thing we're doing."
"Oh, I'm sorry!"
"You're an autocrat. You're a lady-Nero! Tell me, Miss Erith, were you ever afraid of anything on earth?"
"Yes."
"What?"
"Lightning and caterpillars."
"Those are probably the only really dangerous things I never feared," he said. "You seem to be young and human and feminine. Are you?"
"Oh, very."
"Then why aren't you afraid of being shot for a burglar, and why do you go so gaily about grand larceny?"
The girl's light laughter was friendly and fearless.
"Do you live alone?" he inquired after a moment's silence.
"Yes. My parents are not living."
"You are rather an unusual girl, Miss Erith."
"Why?"
"Well, girls of your sort are seldom as much in earnest about their war work as you seem to be," he remarked with gentle irony.
"How about the nurses and drivers in France?"
"Oh, of course. I mean nice girls, like yourself, who do near-war work here in New York"
"You ARE brutal!" she exclaimed. "I am mad to go to France! It is a sacrificea renunciation for me to remain in New York. I understand nursing and I know how to drive a car; but I have stayed here because my knowledge of ciphers seemed to fit me for this work."
"I was teasing you," he said gently.
"I know it. But there is SO much truth in what you say about near-war work. I hate that sort of woman. Why do you laugh?"
"Because you're just a child. But you are full of ability and possibility, Miss Erith."
"I wish my ability might land me in France!"
"Surely, surely," he murmured.
"Do you think it will, Mr. Vaux?"
"Maybe it will," he said, not believing it. He added: "I think, however, your undoubted ability is going to land us both in jail."
At which pessimistic prognosis they both began to laugh. She was very lovely when she laughed.
"I hope they'll give us the same cell," she said. "Don't you?"
"Surely," he replied gaily.
Once he remembered the photograph of Arethusa in his desk at headquarters, and thought that perhaps he might need it before the evening was over.
"Surely, surely," he muttered to himself, "humhum!"
Her coupe stopped in Fifty-sixth Street near Madison Avenue.
"The car will wait here," remarked the girl, as Vaux helped her to descend. "Lauffer's shop is just around the corner." She took his arm to steady herself on the icy sidewalk. He liked it.
In the bitter darkness there was not a soul to be seen on the street; no tramcars were approaching on Madison Avenue, although far up on the crest of Lenox Hill the receding lights of one were just vanishing.
"Do you see any policemen?" she asked in a low voice.
"Not one. They're all frozen to death, I suppose, as we will be in a few minutes."
They turned into Madison Avenue past the Hotel Essex. There was not a soul to be seen. Even the silver-laced porter had retired from the freezing vestibule. A few moments later Miss Erith paused before a shop on the ground floor of an old-fashioned brownstone residence which had been altered for business.
Over the shop-window was a sign: "H. Lauffer, Frames and Gilding." The curtains of the shop-windows were lowered. No light burned inside.
Over Lauffer's shop was the empty show-window of another shopon the second floorthe sort of place that milliners and tea-shop keepers delight inbut inside the blank show-window was pasted the sign "To Let."
Above this shop were three floors, evidently apartments. The windows were not lighted.
"Lauffer lives on the fourth floor," said Miss Erith. "Will you please give me the jimmy, Vaux?"
He fished it out of his overcoat pocket and looked uneasily up and down the deserted avenue while the girl stepped calmly into the open entryway. There were two doors, a glass one opening on the stairs leading to the upper floors, and the shop door on the left.
She stooped over for a rapid survey, then with incredible swiftness jimmied the shop door.
The noise of the illegal operations awoke the icy and silent avenue with a loud, splitting crash! The door swung gently inward.
"Quick!" she said. And he followed her guiltily inside.
The shop was quite warm. A stove in the rear room still emitted heat and a dull red light. On the stove was a pot of glue, or some other substance used by gilders and frame makers. Steam curled languidly from it; also a smell not quite as languid.
Vaux handed her an electric torch, then flashed his own. The next moment she found a push button and switched on the lights in the shop. Then they extinguished their torches.